Santa Barbara

The sky has been brown for days. A murky, unsettling brown that covers the horizon and blocks out the sun, which trickles through as bloody orange rays, sometimes split by the treetops into shafts of swirling ash. There are no stars. The heat is stifling even though it is near the end of October, with dry, wilting air rubbing blackened fingers over every attainable surface. Nothing is ever clean. Air filters are clogged and choking. Workers sweep piles of ash with unrepentant vigor and no matter how hard they push soot off the sidewalks and into the street, the currents of malicious wind circumvent their efforts and cover them with silt for the effort. Charred earth rests in weary piles next to houses and stairways like snow drifts after an apocalypse. There is no safe way to breathe. Lungs fill with acidic air as Santa Barbara, as California burns into the ocean. Some of us wait to see the steam rise from the battle, almost certain that the flames will reach into the waves and stifle them, too. People watch a blackened sky for some glimmer of starlight, in the hopes that the ashes will move on, from ashes to dust, so that we can begin again.